Pale Phoenix

by Kathryn Reiss

  "The dress was deep green and the fan had a hunting scene on it," murmured Abby. "They bought the stuff for their daughter's entrance into society because they wanted me to look nice, too. I was living with the Petersons as a companion for Deborah, who was sort of sickly. They treated me like another daughter. The mother even promised I would have a coming-out ball myself when I was old enough—but of course I couldn't stay with them that long."

  Miranda turned over the photograph and read the faded lettering: Abigail, age sixteen. The New York Cotillion, 1856. "But you aren't sixteen," she protested weakly.

  "No. I've always had to lie—just to get by. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of the stories. Who am I this time? How old am I? What background have I concocted for myself? It's like, I don't know, being a spider or something. Spinning webs around me for protection. But they're sticky, too. And they get torn down easily." She sucked on her bottom lip, looking at the photos. "Anyway, it's hard to get work if I tell my true age. It's bad enough being so small."

  "What do you mean, you couldn't stay with the Petersons long?" Dan asked. "Why couldn't you?"

  "I always have to move on because I never get any older. Sooner or later, people notice. I have to find another place to live before they get suspicious."

  Dan frowned. "But why couldn't you stay with these families anyway? And how did you find them in the first place? And where did you go when you left them—" He reached for the photo Miranda was holding and stared at it. "It's all so bizarre."

  "But you have to believe the story now, don't you?" pressed Miranda. "You can't look at these things and not believe."

  Abby looked hurt. "You're right about one thing—it is bizarre. I'm bizarre. I thought of joining a circus sideshow once, just to find a permanent home. You know: Girl Wonder! Never Ages!"

  "Sorry, Abby," said Dan softly. He was nearly as pale as Abby herself as he studied the photographs. "It's just hard to believe. I mean, the whole thing. Your story—and these pictures as proof. The photos could be fakes, you know." He looked earnestly at Miranda. "They seem old and all that, but even age could probably be faked with special techniques."

  "I don't think they're fakes," maintained Miranda.

  "Yeah? But Abby's a self-confessed liar. Why should this story be any more true than any other story she's told over the years?"

  "Over the years, Dan? Listen to yourself. Either you believe Abby's as old as she says she is, or you don't. The only reason she's told so many lies is because she's had to cope." Miranda glowered at him. "I think you're being horrible. Think of how awful it is for Abby to tell the truth for once and have no one believe her."

  "Well, at least she's got you in her corner now," said Dan coolly. "And that was no easy conquest."

  They stared at each other. "Truth is stranger than fiction," Miranda told him, moving away so their arms were no longer touching. "Haven't you heard that saying before?" We're fighting, she thought. I can't believe it.

  They faced each other on the bed, frowning. Miranda glanced over to see how Abby was reacting, then screamed and clutched Dan's arm.

  Abby had vanished. She had been sitting in the beanbag chair only a moment before. She had not passed the bed to leave the room. And there was no other way out.

  Dan leapt off the bed in a panic. "Where'd she go? Abby!" He picked up the beanbag chair, dropped it again, ran to the window and looked out, then turned to Miranda with terror in his eyes. She sat motionless on the bed, tense and waiting.

  Suddenly the air in the room seemed to change. It felt denser for an instant, as if atoms were somehow rearranging themselves. And then Abby was there again, back in the beanbag chair.

  "Proof," Abby said softly. "All I have to do is wish to be back at the ruin, and I'm there."

  "Oh, Abby." Miranda's heart was beating hard, as if she had been running. She regarded Abby with awe.

  "I can't blame anybody for doubting me," Abby continued. "But seeing is believing."

  "I believe you," whispered Dan. "I believe you. Just don't—don't do that again."

  Miranda reached for Dan's hand and held it tightly.

  "I promise I won't—at least not without warning you. But listen, let me tell you the whole story, just as I remember it," Abby offered. She shuffled thoughtfully through the stacks of pictures as Miranda and Dan recovered themselves and settled back on the bed together. She had their undivided attention.

  "I guess I have to start with the fire at my house," Abby began. Her voice was gentle, as if she were sorry for having frightened them and didn't want to do it again. "It was a hot night in July, in 1693. Right here in Garnet. I was thirteen—almost fourteen, just like I am now. We were having a special dinner at my house for William, who was turning sixteen. He lived next door. Our own house was small, but with a large garden. We had chickens and geese. There were my father and mother, and my sisters, Constance and Faith. Our brother, Thomas, wasn't there that night." She stared out at the falling snow.

  "Anyway—it was awfully hot and dry that summer, but even so, we always kept the fire going—that was the only way to heat water or to cook, you know. The roof caught fire while we were eating dinner. It flared up so suddenly—and it just fell in on us. I was at the table talking to William and suddenly everything was chaos. I could hear my mother and my sisters screaming—and I could hear my father shouting. I couldn't see anything in the smoke. It was all around me. I couldn't breathe. I felt something burn my leg—and then, I don't remember what happened. Somehow I was out of the house. The smoke was clearing. Everything was all in ruins. Men were everywhere with buckets of water trying to keep sparks from jumping over to the Prindles' place—"

  "The Prindle House?" interrupted Miranda in surprise.

  "That's right—your same Prindle House." A fleeting smile lifted the corners of Abby's mouth. "Well, nearly the same. It may be the oldest house in Garnet now, but it wasn't then. William's father had built it only the year before."

  "What happened next?" ventured Dan. "Did you go to the men?"

  "Of course," said Abby, resuming her tale. "I saw my brother Thomas and ran to him. I grabbed his arm—I was crying, but he didn't see me! He didn't feel me there at all. I ran all around, trying to make someone hear me, but it was like I wasn't even there. William's father came along, and another neighbor, but they couldn't see me, either. I thought—I thought I must have died after all. I must have become a ghost."

  Miranda nestled against Dan. She felt in need of comforting.

  "I waited there until the men had every spark out," Abby continued in a low voice. "And when they left, I tried to follow—but I couldn't. I couldn't leave the site of my house. It was as if—I can't explain it. As if there were a wall of wind holding me back. I tried my hardest to press through the wall and felt myself caught up in—I don't know what it was—a kind of whirlwind or something. I couldn't see, I couldn't hear anything but roaring—and I thought, well, if I hadn't died already, this was surely the end." She smoothed her palm over the manila envelope. "But it wasn't the end. Because when the wind stopped, there I was, standing in a field next to the Prindle House. A field, don't you see? Where there hadn't been any field before because my house stood there."

  Miranda didn't see at all. She just sat with her hand in Dan's and waited, and Abby continued after a moment of silence. "The field was covered with patches of snow, and I was shivering, wearing only my summer dress. Seconds before it had been summer. Now I was freezing. There was no sign of my house at all—no rubble, no ash. Just grass and snow. I started walking toward the Prindle House, and then I noticed it looked different. It was bigger. There was a porch and a whole other wing. But what was I supposed to do? It started snowing—it was as bad out as it is now." She pointed at the window.

  "So I walked to the house and knocked on the door. I thought I'd find William's family, but a woman answered who I'd never seen before. She took one look at me and drew me in. 'Laura,' she cried, 'I declare! We weren't expecting you for anoth
er week. What a little bitty thing you are.' And then she sort of shrieked and said, 'Oh, you poor dear thing, where is your trunk? And your cloak?' Of course, I didn't know what to say, so I just stood there in a kind of daze. The woman's voice sounded strange to me. It was a different accent from the people in Garnet. Her clothes were odd, too. And the house! Somehow it wasn't William's at all, anymore. It had completely different furniture and was painted and wallpapered, and full of all sorts of things on shelves. The woman hustled me over to a warm seat near the fireplace and wrapped me in a shawl. 'Just rest now, dear. It's clear to me you have met with some misadventure, and I'll want to hear all about it. But now you need to get warmed up.'"

  Abby pleated the envelope as she spoke. "So I drank her mulled cider and warmed up by the fire, and wondered what on earth had happened to me. I figured I wasn't dead after all—surely heaven wouldn't look like the Prindle House. I must have been in shock, I guess. I couldn't imagine what was going on. But then—" Her voice lowered, and Miranda and Dan had to lean forward to hear her. "Then suddenly I noticed the needlework—it was a sampler—the woman had been working on. It was lying on the chair next to mine, and I straightened it out to see properly." She paused. "That was when I knew something impossible had happened. The date on the sampler was 1756—more than sixty years in the future!"

  Miranda had been following Abby's story as if watching a film; she could picture it all so exactly. The bedraggled, frightened girl brought into an unfamiliar house, warming herself in front of a fire, her mind in turmoil. And then seeing the needlework, grabbing it up to check the date—and then what? What do you do when you discover the impossible has happened? How had Abby coped? Miranda gazed at Abby with new respect.

  "So what did you do then?" asked Dan eagerly. He no longer seemed afraid of Abby.

  "What could I do? When the woman came back with my drink, I asked her what town we were in, and what colony. I just had to be sure. She said, 'Garnet, of course. In Massachusetts. Dear child, has something happened to addle your wits?' She thought I was Laura, her cousin's daughter from Philadelphia who was coming to stay after having been orphaned. The woman—her name was Matilda Prindle—was good to me. I stayed with her, telling her I had no recollection of what had happened to my trunk, my cloak, or anything. She believed I had been set upon by thieves, and so traumatized that I lost my memory—you know, you call it amnesia now."

  Abby pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I let her think what she wanted. At the time, I didn't know what to think about what had happened, either. Maybe I had lost my memory. How could I know? Certainly I realized something amazing had happened. You wouldn't believe how frightened I was when I walked around Garnet with Matilda Prindle and saw places I recognized, but all changed. It was like something out of a nightmare. And the people! I saw faces I thought I almost recognized ... I went to Thomas's house—my brother's—but the house had become a milliner's." She glanced at Miranda's perplexed expression. "A hat shop," she explained. "It was right where The Sassy Café is now."

  Abby hugged herself and continued. "I discovered horrible things. That Thomas and Sarah were dead, and their children, Charity, Nicholas, and Daniel, too. Dead from old age! I learned that Charity had married into the Prindle family and that Matilda's husband, Tobias, was her son. Little Charity's son—I couldn't believe it. She was just a baby, practically, when I knew her. Can you imagine how it was for me to believe that somehow—in an instant—the little children I knew 'had grown up, led their whole lives through, had children and grandchildren—all in the time it took me to whirl through that wind?"

  "I'd never have believed any of this if I hadn't seen you disappear," Dan said under his breath.

  Abby creased the envelope into a square. "Anyway, I stayed with this new generation of Prindles as long as I could. When Matilda Prindle's cousin Laura showed up at last a week later, I had already made myself helpful to the family. Matilda and Tobias had four children, and they let me stay on with them as a sort of housekeeper or poor relation. I did a lot of the work, but I also got to eat meals with the family and take lessons with their two daughters. Laura, the cousin, was a few years older than me, but we soon became friends. It was hard to leave...." Abby's voice trailed off.

  "But why did you leave them at all?" Miranda asked. "Why not just explain what had happened to you, awful and bizarre though it was, and stay?"

  "Because memory lasts a long, long time. The people of Garnet—my Garnet, that is—were afraid of witchcraft. We saw it everywhere. It seemed to be all around us, in the air, anyplace. The people in Matilda and Tobias's Garnet thought they had finally put that fear behind them. But after a few years, people couldn't help but notice I wasn't changing. And the whispers of witchcraft started again. I couldn't bear it. Even later, when people didn't believe in witches so readily anymore, I'd have been enough to convince them all over again." Abby threw down the manila envelope and hugged herself again. "I don't grow. Nothing changes at all." She stretched out her hand. "Look, my nails haven't grown since the fire. And my hair hasn't, either." She held out her foot and peeled off the sock. "Look at this. See that bruise?"

  Miranda and Dan gazed at the dark blue fleck on the knuckle of Abby's big toe.

  "Well, that happened about a week before the fire when I dropped an iron ladle on my toe while I was helping my mother make stew. The bruise hasn't gone away in all this time. Same with the burn on my thigh—it never healed. At first I kept putting ointment on it, and bandages—but then I noticed it never changed at all. It didn't get better, but it didn't get any worse. It hurt—but I learned to live with the pain. I hardly ever notice it now."

  "I guess you'd get used to just about anything in three hundred years," said Dan.

  Abby pulled her sock back on. "I always have to move on before people notice there's something weird about me. Sooner or later, someone notices I'm still a kid. I never get taller. I never"—she glanced down at her small breasts—"never develop much." Her smile was rueful. "I think the wind threw me into a time warp or something after the fire and kicked me into the future. I just thank God I wasn't ill with smallpox or a fever then, or else I'd still be ill today."

  "You mean you never get sick or hurt?" marveled Dan.

  "Oh, sure I do. It seems to be only the things that happened to me before the fire that never change." Her mouth twisted. "I've had plenty of cuts and bruises in my time, believe me. But they all healed normally—and whenever I got sick, I got better again, even though I sometimes prayed I'd die. But I'm stuck with this burn and this bruise. And this girl's body and brain."

  Miranda stood up and prowled restlessly around the bedroom. "And that old man who died? The one you were living with in Baltimore? Who was he really?"

  "His name was Louis Horner, and I was sort of acting as his nurse. I like living with old people. I can help them as much as they help me, and they aren't so quick to turn me in to the authorities. But of course when he died, he left the house to his own relatives. I had to get out of there fast before people arrived for the funeral."

  "But how do you move on when you have to leave?" Miranda couldn't imagine how it would feel to be on her own, without her parents. She stared out the window. The snow was falling so thickly that she could only barely make out the outlines of her house across the road. "Do you just run off without even leaving a note?"

  Abby sighed and fingered a packet of photographs. "Oh, sometimes I leave a letter, sometimes not. I just move on, but it's never easy leaving the people you care about—over and over again. It's wrenching. You never get used to it."

  Dan reached for Miranda's hand. "How do you choose where to go next?" he asked.

  "I'm drawn back to Garnet, but I have to be careful not to come here more than once every fifty years or so. I can't risk having people recognize me. But Garnet's my real home. I belong here. It was hard, that first time, to leave the Prindles. At least they were related to me—through Charity, you see. I didn't know where to go from there. But I left
them a note saying thank you for everything, and just ran away to Boston one night. I found work in a tavern as a serving girl. Once Tobias Prindle was in Boston, visiting his brother. They walked in—and I panicked. I couldn't let Tobias see me. After that, I made sure I moved farther away."

  "Tobias Prindle." Dan spoke the name quietly. "Now I remember where I've heard that name before. There's a letter written by a Tobias Prindle—something about witchcraft—in the Prindle House exhibit now. Could it be the same man?"

  "Probably," nodded Abby. "I'd like to see that letter. It seems to me Tobias had published something in the newspaper—I think I remember people talking about it."

  "Well, where did you go when you ran away again?" asked Dan.

  "To Concord. I helped on a farm. I stayed there during the war."

  "During the war?" Miranda looked perplexed. "What war?"

  "The American Revolution," said Abby. "You know."

  Miranda's eyes opened wide. "You must be a walking history book! You must know everything there is to know—the real, inside stories about everything. Did you meet Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and everybody? All the founding fathers—Just think of it, Dan. Abby was right there."

  Abby sighed. "I was there, all right. Milking cows and weeding the vegetable garden, trying to grow enough food to feed the hungry British soldiers that were billeted with the family. But that's as close as I came to fame and glory. Think about it, Mandy. Have you met the president? Do you know the inside story about what's happening in politics?"

  Miranda frowned, disappointed.

  "Oh, I did a lot of things," continued Abby. "In the early 1800s I worked for rich families in New York and Boston. That's when I was with the Longridges. When I left them, I had to get out of town fast. I went west with a family who had a land grant. I helped with all their children and stayed out in Kansas for a long time...." Her voice faltered. She looked at Miranda and Dan sitting shoulder to shoulder on the bed and sighed. "I fell in love—and got married."